live performances
6th Annual Sub Voicive Colloquium, Camden People's Theatre, London
Verbs take first place in this language. The Yaghans had a dramatic verb to capture every twitch of the muscles, every possible action of nature or man. The verb Iya means 'to moor your canoe to a streamer of kelp'; okon 'to sleep in floating canoe' (and quite different from sleeping in a hut, on the beach or with your wife); ukomona 'to hurl your spear into a shoal of fish without aiming for a particular one'; wejna 'to be loose or easily moved as a broken bone or the blade of a knife' - 'to wander about or roam, as a homeless or a lost child' - 'to be attached yet loose, as an eye or bone in its socket' - 'to swing, move or travel' - or simply 'to exist or be'.Bruce Chatwin: In Patagonia (Picador 1977).
